


A Couple O' Cats

by Crollalanza



Series: Cats [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Domestic Violence, Friendship, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Sexual Content, very mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1966269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crollalanza/pseuds/Crollalanza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had nothing in common. Not even a ‘surface only’ thing. Didn’t look alike, sound alike, or have remotely compatible personalities, so no one quite got why they were close. It was only proximity that flung them together – the brash Kuroo boy, heading for a trash heap of crime and drugs, and the mouse-like Kozume, who disappeared from people’s thoughts even when he was in the same room. </p><p>Nobody understood their friendship, but neither cared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Couple O' Cats

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this, I guess, for haikyuustuff on tumblr because she'd said if I ever wrote Kuroken fluff, then I should send her way. Not sure this entirely fits the bill, but here you go, love. 
> 
> I know very little about Japanese Health Care - sorry.

They had nothing in common. Not even a ‘surface only’ thing. Didn’t look alike, sound alike, or have remotely compatible personalities, so no one quite got why they were close. It was only proximity that flung them together – the brash Kuroo boy, heading for a trash heap of crime and drugs, and the mouse-like Kozume, who disappeared from people’s thoughts even when he was in the same room.

Nobody understood their friendship (‘Doncha think Tetsurou would find someone more his type?’ ‘That Kozume boy’ll get dragged down by him.’) but neither cared. 

 

To Kuro, Kenma isn’t a mouse. He doesn’t run away to hide in a hole, but watches from the corner. Timid? Not really. Observant, definitely. Like a kitten catching up on sleep but with one eye open ... just in case.

To Kenma, his friend is his gateway. Not that he tells him that ‘cause Kuro would laugh. Kenma wants to join in the world, but his hands go clammy when he thinks about making an initial approach. He hates the way that as soon as he speaks,  eyes drift towards him, take him in for a moment, and then flit to someone else. It’s as if he doesn’t exist. Or worse, he exists but isn’t important, so he’s forgotten. Kuro never makes him feel like that. Kuro refuses to forget about him, even when Kenma huddles under his bedclothes saying it’s too early in the day, that he’s sleepy, or has bubonic plague, or just _dammit_ wants to be alone.  Kuro jumps on the bed and drags him out to play.

(He calls him Kuro, never Tetsurou, not after the time he’d experimented to see his friend’s reaction and saw him glower before stomping off.)

“I’m gonna be a volleyball player. You gotta toss for me!”

“’K,” he replies, not caring and not knowing what Kuro means, ‘cause his crazes for things are always short-lived, but it’s better to get on and enjoy the ride. Last week it had been football. The month before basketball. And there was a phase of baseball in between. Kuro’s a volcano, erupting with a magma of enthusiasm then sluggish when the lava flow doesn’t quite meet his expectations.

It’s another thing they don’t have in common. But then Kenma’s enthusiastic about nothing.

 

“No, don’t throw it _at_ me! It has to be tossed, so it kinda floats.”

 _This isn’t like baseball_ , Kenma thinks, liking the fact that there’s no bat he has to avoid when Kuro swings too fiercely. He takes a step back, and tosses the ball into the air.

SLAM!  The sound of the ball hitting the dry grass reverberates through the air. Almost astonished (but not showing by even a hint that he was remotely interested) Kenma checks the ground for cracks; sure, he’ll see a Kuro-made earthquake under his feet.

“Awesome!  You have a go, Kenma.”

He shrugs, but lets Kuro toss. Erratic, it soars into the air, and behind Kenma’s head. He thinks about running back for it, wondering if he’ll get the same thrill Kuro gets from dashing around, but the ball falls with a thud before he’s moved.

_‘Useless, Kimi!’_

“Try spiking, Kenma, try. It’s fun!” Kuro urges, after they’ve been outside for the afternoon, and all Kenma has done is toss.

And such is Kuro’s enthusiasm, Kenma at last makes an effort. He has no power, or speed, or any of his friend’s athletic ability, but he has accuracy and his aim’s good. Somewhere in that first session together, they find a connection based not on proximity but on a balancing of skills.

And Kozume Kenma thinks he might just be good at something.

 

Kuroo Tetsurou knows exactly why he hangs around Kozume Kenma. His friend, who is so good at noticing the world around them both, doesn’t ask questions. His eyes will flick catlike over Kuro’s limbs, then to his face, but he never asks what has happened. He never tells Kuro that he has to stop picking fights,  that he should to keep his smart mouth shut, or really needs to watch where he’s going. He gives his friend an almost smile, picks up a volleyball and tosses it in the air. Both of them watch the ball plummet to the ground, then Kuro makes a quip about neither being a great Libero, and throws the ball back to Kenma.

“Are your parents coming to watch the match?” he asks one day.

Kenma nods, then hesitates. “Mum is.”

“Your dad working?” Kuro asks.

“Uh-huh.”

But Kuro knows he’s lying.

 

Kozume Shou is a loud man, fond of his own voice. And he’s a man who wants a loud son. The sort of son who plays football, or basketball, or even baseball. He’d like a son who’s tall, athletic and roaring through life. He’d like a son very much like Kuroo Tetsurou, but instead he has Kenma. One time when Kuro stayed for tea, Kenma’s dad spent that evening talking to him, asking his opinion and never once asking his son a question. His eyes would flit from Kuro to Kenma, viewing the latter with disappointment as Kenma hid under his shag of a black fringe.

Kenma’s dad calls him Kimiko – ‘Empress child’. It’s meant as an insult. A girl’s name, because volleyball, according to Kozume Shou, is a sport for girls. To Kuro, it’s as if Mr Kozume is trying to provoke a reaction. But Kenma shrugs further into himself, and leaves the table when he’s excused.

“What’s your dad’s problem?” Kuro blurts out. Then he flushes because he’s broken their rule and now Kenma will turn the tables and start his interrogation, and things will never be the same.

Kenma blinks a little, then sits on the edge of his bed. He digs into his school bag and brings out a game. “Want to play?”

The game is new, a present from his mum, just ... because.  Kuro plays the game for a while, anything so he doesn’t have to look at Kenma because he knows he’s the lucky one. His scars are visible, but no amount of electronic games can cover up Kenma’s scars.

 

Kuro is fourteen when he fights back. It’s a mistake. He’s not ready and although he lands a punch, there’s not much power and it’s the only chance he gets. His arm is twisted high behind his back as he’s forced onto the floor to be kicked with heavy boots. He hears the snap of a bone, but doesn’t scream – not any more.

The threat of the police from the neighbour hammering on the wall to ‘shut the fuck up’ stops Kuro taking more punishment. Using his dad’s hesitation,  he flees the house and runs to the patch of scrub near the park. Alone, he curls up in a ball, and lets himself cry.

Kenma finds him. He doesn’t ask what happened, but Kuro knows he knows, because Kenma’s smart and would have assessed all the bruises,   a long time before. It is Kenma who takes him to the hospital, not letting Kuro talk him out of it.

When he wants, Kenma is single-minded. When he cares, he’s unstoppable.

 

It might have been better not to lie to the doctor, but Kenma backs up his friend and says they were playing volleyball, and that’s how his friend broke his wrist. The doctor eyes them both dubiously, and she starts to explain that a fracture like this could only be caused by stress and not a fall. But both of them stare back at her, their eyes identically wide, and as neither have given their real names, there’s nothing she can do.  Kenma pays the bill with cash, and later Kuro discovers he’s used all his savings. The Xbox he’d been gazing at in the shop window remains unsold.

 

They return to the park and Kenma picks up a ball.  Then he remembers his friend’s wrist, and drops the ball to the ground. Sitting down, he pulls out his gameboy instead.  

“Toss the ball,” Kuro says softly.

“You’ve broken your wrist.”

“Still got another one,” Kuro replies.

“Do you want to ... uh ... stay over tonight?” Kenma asks as he spins the ball on his fingertips. “It would give him time to cool off.”

By cool off, he means sober up. It’s the first time Kenma’s voiced that he knows all about Kuro’s dad. That Kuroo Tetsurou Snr is an intermittent drunk, who when he reaches that nasty phase of intoxication lays into his wife and sometimes his son, are facts well known in their neighbourhood. No one says anything. The curtains twitch a little, and there are pitying looks whenever his mum appears with her face heavily made up and wearing long sleeves in summer. Kuro’s dad also spends an inordinate amount of time swearing he’ll never drink again, that things will be different because he loves them both and this was a blip.  He spends his next pay packet on new trainers for Kuro and a colourful necklace for his wife.

“Mum’s cooking mackerel tonight,” Kenma says, bouncing the ball.

Kuro glares, but Kenma’s gaze is unwavering. There’s no pity, but there is determination. “Toss that ball, Kozume,” he growls. “I’ll think about it.”

 

 

“So, Tetsurou,” Kozume Shou leans across the table. “Are you still playing volleyball?”

His mouth is full of the delicious salted mackerel, so he only nods back.

“I would have thought a boy like you would have taken to basketball.”

“Prefer volleyball,” Kuro mutters. He doesn’t want to be rude, especially as Kenma’s mum has said he can stay the night and longer if he likes, but he’s sick of the jibes at his sport. “You should come and watch us. Kenma’s good, you know. There’s a Junior High tournament next week.”

“Kimi plays, does he?” Shou asks. “On the boys’ team?” He laughs to take the sting out of his words, but Kuro’s not fooled. There shouldn’t be the need for a sting.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kenma murmurs. He flips his hair out of his eyes and stares at his dad.

“Kenma-chan,” his mum coos. “I bought that new game you wanted. Perhaps you and Tetsurou would like to play it now.”

 

Later that night, when even Kenma’s bored of the game, they lie on the bed and watch the moon climb in the sky. Kuro’s arm is aching and he can’t get comfortable enough to sleep, so in the end he props himself up to sitting. His good hand inadvertently settles somewhere between Kenma’s shoulder and his hair, but Kenma doesn’t move away.

“I’m going to Nekoma High,” Kuro says. “Got the letter this morning. Gonna be a cat.”

“Dad wants me to try for an elite school,” Kenma murmurs.

“Oh...” His throat has tightened. He’d not envisioned his future, not really, only in an ‘it’s there’ type of way and the vague knowledge that he’ll play volleyball for his High School. But now he thinks about it, he’d never thought he’d be playing _against_ Kenma.

Something shifts against him; it’s Kenma tilting his face upwards to meet his eyes. “I’m not going to try very hard,” he says, and he’s actually smiling.

“Good,” Kuro whispers, and moves his hand to stroke Kenma’s hair. “Cause we’re gonna take the Cats to Nationals.”

When he wakes in the morning, Kenma’s arm is furled around his waist and it amuses him because he’d always thought he was the protective one.

 

Kuroo Tetsurou (snr) is dry for two-hundred and sixty eight days. Kuro knows this because he’s kept track of the days and nights since he broke his wrist. It’s not just because that was the day of The Accident (as his mum calls it) but because he remembers its aftermath and how a real sense of peace had descended on him in Kenma’s room.  They’d talked a little more, but mainly it had been quiet that night. After Kenma had fallen asleep beside him, Kuro had stared out of the window for a long time, counting stars, until finally his lids grew heavy.

So nearly nine months after his dad had twisted his wrist in such a way that it broke, Kuro heads back from Nekoma High. He’s in a hurry because he’d promised Kenma he’d meet him for practise. He has news, too. He’s been picked for the starting line up next Saturday and hopes Kenma will come and watch. In particular, Kuro wants Kenma to watch their Setter because it’s a good way to learn what _not_ to do. The Nekoma Setter is timid and has no real game sense. He’s safe, but dull. He’ll also be leaving before Kenma gets there.

Speeding up, because he’s now half an hour late, he rushes into his house and runs upstairs to change. He throws off his uniform, not bothering to fold it, and pulls on old shorts and a tattered tee. He wastes precious seconds fiddling with his hair because he likes the spike hanging over his forehead. Kenma won’t mind him being late. He’ll be sitting in the park, unaware of the time, as he presses buttons and makes his gameboy (or whatever he has this week) beep.

But as he pounds down the stairs, he’s suddenly aware of one thing: his Mum isn’t listening to the radio.

She listens and sings along when she’s cooking. She loves music, and would like to fill the house with it all day long when she’s happy. But now it’s eerily silent, and Kuro knows why.

Two hundred and sixty nine days before, his Dad had come home drunk at lunch, picked up the radio and smashed it against the wall. He was sick of her incessant singing, sick of the crap she listened to, sick of this life, sick of this house, sick of HER.  He was a swaggering drunk, high on his own power, delighting in the terror in her eyes. At fourteen Kuro thought he could protect her, and found he was wanting. At fifteen, he won’t make the same mistake.

“Mum?” he calls out tentatively. “You okay?”

She’s stirring things. Some kind of fish nimono, he thinks.

“Everything is fine,” she says and turns towards him. “Your father’s had a tense day, so don’t bug him, okay?”

He gulps a little in relief because her face is unmarked, but still he reaches for his phone to cancel practise with Kenma.

“Where are you going?” It’s his dad; his voice is over-loud. The unmistakable stench of bourbon wafts around him. Two-hundred and sixty-eight days and nights ended at a stroke.

“I’m cancelling Kenma,” he replies slowly. “I’ll stay in.”

“The Kozume boy?”

“Yeah, how many other Kenma’s do I know?” Kuro snaps. It’s a stupid move, but for some reason his dad’s never liked Kenma, maybe because he knows Kenma’s not fooled by him.

“Kuro, go out,” his mum says quietly. “I’ll leave you some food.”

“Yeah, go and play with your girlfriend,” his dad taunts.

“What?” Kuro’s hand stills on the phone.

“’Kimiko’: isn’t that what his dad calls him? No wonder he wants him at a mixed school.” He stops leaning on the doorframe and jabs his finger into Kuro’s chest. “You need to find other friends, Surou-chan.”

Kuro is taller than his dad now. He’s lithe and agile, his body starting to hone into a man’s rather than the boy he’d been two-hundred and sixty-nine days before. He raises his hand, but instead of lashing out, he grabs his dad’s jabbing finger.

“Sleep this off,” he warns, staring his dad straight in the eye.

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll break more than your wrist.”

“Tetsurou...” his mum says, her voice no longer soft. “Leave us.”

“Not this time,” he replies.

Because the last time - the time two-hundred and sixty-eight days ago - when he’d returned from staying with Kenma, her nose had been broken.

But his mum isn’t talking to him. She steps up to her son, reaches across his chest and breaks the connection between the two men.

“I meant it when you said you had one last chance,” she tells her husband, her voice steady. “Leave us.”

 

Kenma’s not upset when Kuro cancels practise. Yeah it’s last minute, but it’s not put him out. There’ll have been a good reason, he knows that.  Staying a little longer in the park, he thinks about the test he’s just failed. He knows he’s failed because he deliberately filled in the boxes wrong, shifting across one space so it looks as if he tried his best but with a small error. His dad’ll be mad; he’ll probably protest to the school, but they’re not going to accept some dumbass kid who made such a basic error.  Instead he’ll go to Nekoma High, walking with Kuro every day, and he’ll join the volleyball team. 

He closes his eyes, enjoying the last cool rays of the day, and thinks of that night two-hundred and sixty-nine days ago when he’d watched the moon through his window, and woken up curled around Kuro. He can sense him still even when he’s not physically present, the warmth of his body, the rough scent of his skin, the pulse of his heart thrumming in his chest.

 

It’s Kenma’s birthday. His mum wants him to have a party. She says she’ll order a cake, and he can choose whatever food he wants. He can treat friends to a cinema trip, if he’d like. His dad’s mentions a laser tag place that’s opened on the outskirts of the city. They’ll do a deal if Kenma can find nine other friends to take along.

Nine friends plus Kenma, that’s more than enough for a volleyball team, but Kenma just shrugs. Inviting his classmates would mean approaching them.

He agrees to the cake, and asks his mum to prepare salted mackerel. She raises her eyebrows but acquiesces.  

Turning up a little late, Kuro apologises to Kenma’s mum, presenting her with a small bunch of flowers that he bought from the garage at the bottom of the road.  Then, from his rucksack, Kuro produces a larger package and hands it to Kenma. It’s badly wrapped and he hasn’t brought a card, but Kenma doesn’t care. More than anything, he’s pleased to see his friend because Kuro’s been busy recently, what with school, volleyball and now the job he’s taken on at a warehouse, lugging boxes.

In his bedroom, Kenma unwraps the present. His mouth drops open.

“That is the one you want, right?” Kuro asks, sounding uncharacteristically nervous.

“It’s an Xbox,” Kenma whispers.

“Yeah, latest model.”

“But how did you afford it?”

Kuro laughs. “Why do you think I took that crappy job, Kenma? I pay my debts.”

Kenma’s torn between staring at the present and staring at Kuro. “There wasn’t a debt. You’re ... you’re my friend.”

“Mmm, I know.” 

Taking the box from him, Kuro starts to set it up. He hands Kenma the consul, and watches as his friend’s face lights up with something approaching happiness as the screen flickers into life. Then his expression is replaced by one of intense concentration as he loses himself in the game. Kuro smiles to himself. He sits on the bed, behind Kenma and drapes his arms around him. 

On the surface, they have nothing in common. Kuro, the brash alley cat now learning responsibility, and Kenma, the quiet kitten watching from the sides, should not have a connection. But they have familiarity and an ease in each other’s company that no one else can fill. 

And as Kuro inhales the scent of Kenma’s hair, he realises that at that precise moment, he’s happier than he’s ever been.


End file.
